


14.08: Lily Sunder Has A Lot of Regrets

by nochickflickpodcast



Series: NCFM Season 14 [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (No) Chick Flick Moments, Character Analysis, Comedy, Discussion, Episode Analysis, Episode: s14e08 Byzantium, Fancast, Gen, Humor, Meta, Podcast, Screenplay/Script Format, transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-08 05:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21470446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nochickflickpodcast/pseuds/nochickflickpodcast
Summary: Join us in covering S14E8, "Byzantium", or the one where Sam is sad about his metaphorical axe, Dean is yelling to the metaphorically empty room, and Cas doesn't get a metaphor, but he does get a number of sorely needed hugs.
Series: NCFM Season 14 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1379836
Kudos: 1





	14.08: Lily Sunder Has A Lot of Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> Complete transcript of (No) Chick Flick Moment's 14.08: Lily Sunder Has A Lot of Regrets
> 
> Listen in full [here](https://www.nochickflickpodcast.com/episodes/episode/6a463813/1408-lily-sunder-has-a-lot-of-regrets), or wherever you get your podcasts!
> 
> Website ([x](https://www.nochickflickpodcast.com/)) Twitter ([x](https://twitter.com/nochickflickpod)) Tumblr ([x](https://nochickflickpodcast.tumblr.com/)) 
> 
> Come join us!

Remmy: Hello, hello, hello everybody! This is (No) Chick Flick Moments, our Supernatural watchcast: for fans, by fans. Bea! How are you today? 

Bea: I am doing excellent. How about you, Remmy? How's it going? 

Remmy: I'm doing good. I'm all hyped up because I cried in like the first two minutes, but then I'm like, I mellowed out since then. 

Bea: Yeah. Yeah, We have the sorrow hit, and then the heartbeat, increasing heartbeat. [laughs] 

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah, this week, this week — I'm Remmy, as you surmised, I'm sure.

Bea: I'm Bea.

Remmy: Hi, Bea.

Bea: Hi. [laughs] 

Remmy: [laughs] And this week we are talking about Supernatural season 14, episode 8: "Byzantium". It was an episode written by Meredith Glynn, and directed by Eduardo Sanchez.

Bea: Meredith!

Remmy: Meredith! What was the — do you know off the top of your head, what was the last Meredith episode that we had?

Bea: Wasn't she the one for "Nightmare Logic"? 

Remmy: Yes, she was, yes. Yes. 

Bea: Yes. So yeah, a lot of moving pieces that have to go quickly and then handling them deftly in execution. 

Remmy: Yeah, the description for this episode reads: When Sam and Dean join forces with an unexpected ally, the outcome will alter the course of two lives. Meanwhile, Heaven faces an attack from a dark force, driving Castiel to make an enormous sacrifice to make things right.

Bea: Woof.

Remmy: Dun dun dun.

Bea: Oh my God. Yeah, this episode, I remember on first watch, [it] knocked the breath out of me. It was a lot to happen to our characters and left your head spinning at the end of it going, "Wow, that was a fast hour!"

Remmy: It was, yeah. Yeah. On the first watch, I was just sitting there on the edge of my seat reacting to everything that's happening. This is actually only the second time that I've watched this episode. I haven't any sort of re-watch since the first time I saw it. I felt like I was absorbing a lot more this watch.

Bea: Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, because if you look at how much action happens before the beginning opening credits even roll here, you're like, are you kidding me? 

Remmy: [sings] I know!

Bea: [laughs] Jack is dead before we are even — I mean, not even spoilers, because they're coming in six minutes.

Remmy: [laughs] So Sam, Dean, and Cas [are] in Jack's room, and Jack is in his room, in his sick bed. 

Bea: Yes. Sam is the one right beside him in bed. He's helping Jack sit up. Cas is standing nearby, and Dean is standing over a record player, and my eyes immediately caught on that thing, first watch. 

Remmy: I mean, it just — the whole scene came in so beautifully, because it read to me as we just dropped right into this moment where they are — they've all been sitting here for hours and hours. And in the recap, we got a recap of Rowena saying there's nothing we can do. We can just keep him comfortable and be with him as he passes. 

Bea: Yeah, it's coming from the set dressing too, not just their presence. We can see there's this stack of books that is on the shelf; I'm assuming this is Dean's record player that he's brought in so that there's music available to play. The lights are dimly lit. They have an oxygen tank for him. It really gives the feeling of round-the-clock palliative care that's happening here. 

Remmy: Like I said, they've been here for hours, if not days, just trying to be there for Jack. Can you just imagine Sam, Dean, and Cas have been sitting here at Jack's bedside, and Dean has been playing his records and the record runs out on the track, and he stands up to change it out and he just kind of loses himself halfway to the record player. He just can't anymore. 

Bea: Oh my God. Yeah, because we can see Dean's reaching his limit here. And you mentioned hours or days — I really feel it's closer to the hours line, because of what we see in the next little bit, where Dean calls Mary.

Remmy: Oh, yeah.

Bea: But yeah. What they're doing right now? Oh my — mmm, it's rough being in that position when you watch someone that you care about just suffering, basically. 

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And there's nothing that you can do besides try and bring them this unattainable comfort.

Remmy: And we drop right in at this breaking moment for Dean, where he just can't anymore. 

Bea: Yeah, and Jack's the one who's trying to comfort him right now, like, "Maybe this is how it's supposed to be," and that's the wrong f****** thing. 

Remmy: No.

Bea: Dean doesn't want to hear that whatsoever. 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. He says, "Don't give me that 'supposed to be' crap. This is not right," and he storms out. 

Bea: Yeah, and Cas kind of chastises him for taking that tone. Like, "Don't raise your voice at the boy." [laughs]

Remmy: [sighs] Yeah. Yeah, and Cas is the one who follows Dean out of the room, while Sam is, like you said, he's the one who has sat with Jack at his bedside, and Jack says —

Bea: "Tell them it's okay."

Remmy: [sighs] Oh, yeah.

Bea: And Sam's little, "Tell them yourself."

Remmy: Yeah, he'll be right back. But Dean is trying to collect himself in the hallway and Cas confronts him. He says, "This is hard. Do you think I don't know this is hard? But this isn't about you. He needs you."

Bea: Exactly. You can't be selfish in this moment, as much as you want to. You have to gather yourself and be there for this other person. You have to put a pause on your own needs. Dean's looking really forlorn here. He punches the wall when he's out in the hall.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: You can see it's just on the tip of his tongue to complain about how unfair this is, and it's like, well, when has your life ever been fair? And yeah, that's part of the problem. That's part of why this is so hard for him.

Remmy: That's what Cas says. He says, "This is, what? This is unfair? This is—" he's echoing Dean's own thoughts, but he's like, "Tough titties."

Bea: Yeah, you can't boohoo right now because that kid right there needs you. 

Remmy: Oh my God, and this is two minutes in.

Bea: I know!

Remmy: Not even.

Bea: Jack [is] asking what’s next for somebody like him, and Sam just doesn't know, and so Jack even now is looking at it with optimism and just like, "Oh, it's going to be an adventure." I'm like [strained] I'm dying too. 

Remmy: [laughs] And I'm like, okay, we're crying now. All right. 

Bea: Yeah, aw s***. Two minutes in.

Remmy: I know!

Bea: What is happening??

Remmy: What is happening!

Bea: I mean, Jack is someone who just cultivates this sense of honesty and — not naivety, but this genuine innocence, like you're being at a peaceful place in your heart. I mean, to stare into the unknown blank eye of death and be like, "What's up ahead there?" and it's like, b****, you're going to find out because you don't get to say yes or no to what's about to happen to you. And then to be like, okay, well, it'll be okay. [sighs] 

Remmy: [groans]

Bea: More fortitude than I have. [laughs]

Remmy: I — I know, and it's just like. On Jack, this was such a great shining moment on Jack, because it's like you said, it's not ignorance. It's not naivety. It's just this combination of eternal optimism and empathy.

Bea: And understanding that, like, "I don't hold you to blame for not having the answers. I get why you don't have answers for this. It's okay."

Remmy: He's so pure. He's just so... Oof. Oof, oof. Okay. So, yeah.

Bea: Okay. So we're in the hallway. Shake it off. Come on, let's keep going, Remmy. 

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: So we're in the hallway and Dean has kind of come around to, okay, I have to go back into the room, but when he goes in — he re-enters, and Jack's already gone.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And we can see, Cas looks to Dean at this moment and Dean is just swallowing a hard. his jaw is flexing. It's... it's not easy to swallow what's happened.

Remmy: I know. I mean, and you know, we framed these first two scenes. We're zooming in on Dean's grief right here, where Cas is being Dean support, but let's take a moment to applaud Sam and Jared in the scene.

Bea: Yeah, because it's such a quiet grief that he's going through.

Remmy: But oh, I mean, we talk about crying when Jack is being Jack about this whole thing — "It's going to be an adventure" — but Sam. Oh, he just looked like he just took a gut punch with that one. 

Bea: Augh. Yeah, eyes brimmed with oceans, like, [teary] "Okay. Yeah, yeah. I guess you're right." I mean. [laughs]

Remmy: [wails] Okay!

Bea: And when they came in and they're like yeah, Jack's dead. I was like, are you kidding me? 

Remmy: Yeah!

Bea: We haven't even seen the opening cards yet, and you just — he's just — 

Remmy: He's dead? We talked about that this last episode. We said exactly this last episode. This was fast. This was — oh my God, we went zero to sixty here. This was a cough that has been, yes, a thread through the first few episodes of the season, um.

Bea: But it's like two episodes ago, at the very end, Jack collapsed, and then last episode we do the "Oh, he's having a bad time," and then by the end of it, [they] put him in hospice, and then — 

Remmy: Opening scene. Opening scenes. He is dead. He's gone.

Bea: [sighs] And yeah, the fact that Jack passed away while Dean and Cas weren't even in the room, like — that hits me hard.

Remmy: It's so hard.

Bea: I — I've been there, and you just wonder if like... You can't be there 24/7, but the mere fact that you are not there in that one moment that seemingly counts... It's this unintended burden. You just have this guilt that comes through you for not being there in those last moments. That you had to take a moment for yourself and then it just feels so selfish in the end.

Remmy: Oh my God.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: Yeah, because that's what we're told, right? Through this opening scene, with the Dean and Cas conversation. We have Cas trying to pull Dean back in and says, "This is for Jack," but then it's just all for naught.

Bea: Yeah, it's too late, and then you have to deal with the repercussions. That's the thing about death is that you're left with the aftermath. You're left with all the emotions that are just crazy inside of you, and you don't know how to parse through, and you won't get the chance to parse through because you have all these immediate questions coming up. We go to the next scene here, where it's the three of them standing in the hall, and they're wondering what the next steps are.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: The fact that Dean says that they're going to give him a hunter's style wake because it's what Jack would have wanted — giving Jack that seal of approval that he is a hunter, in the very end — like, aww.

Remmy: And, I mean, okay, so you said that's death and yeah, that is death, but this is the Winchesters. 

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: And we know their relationship with death, and [with gravitas] this is the opening scene. And so I'm just sitting here on the edge of my seat like, okay. What are we going to do? This next scene is like, what are the next steps? What are we going to do? Except that they're — in the first half of this episode, in the first 20 minutes of this episode — there is no, "What are we going to do?" It's just, "He's gone."

Bea: And then parsing through it, watching the characters deal with, "He's gone. What do we do?"

Remmy: And it really is so unexpected for this show, for them to really, actually be confronted with death as a real thing.

Bea: And to watch them go through the grief and the tributes that come after it. We've seen before, there's been funerals. There's been these scenes where they've had to say goodbye to characters. But this is the first time where it's framed not really as denouement emotion, but as the inciting one. You know, they've died and now we're moving forward from it. 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. And it's not like Charlie's death, where we're going to go out and barter a village for vengeance, and it's not like Bobby's death, where he died at the hands of the Big Bad and then his spirit and his — a threat of vengeance, you know. That's something that carried through the rest of the season where Bobby died. It's just like these deaths that we've seen before, the death was an inciting incident for the plot, I guess.

Bea: Not to put too polished a word on it, but that it was a noble death. That it served the consequences that the characters were going through. Whereas this, you feel the futility of — it's watching a loved one with a terminal illness, watching a loved one who is chronically suffering, and just how helpless it makes you feel. In the other situations that you're describing, like Bobby and Charlie, there is something that you can do afterwards to confront what just happened. But here, it's like we had to let them go because what else were we going to fight? 

Remmy: Yeah. It's a totally different tone and take on death than we've seen before, I think, in the show. So I'm like, okay, what happens next? What happens next?

Bea: Yes. Yes.

Remmy: What are these next steps?

Bea: Augh. So yeah, they settle on the idea of doing the hunter's wake. Dean holds Cas back from following Sam, who just needs to have his space, according to Dean.

Remmy: Yeah. Sam walks off and Cas tries to follow, and just — Cas is just being there for everyone in this situation. It was so hard. It's hard, I mean...

Bea: He's wanting to hold the four of them close. Stay around each other; care for each other. You need each other in this moment. And saying that, it makes it feel like Cas is on the peripheral of it, but he's really put himself into this caretaker mode of, "I know that you guys aren't okay, and the only way we're going to get through this is if we stick together rather than splinter apart."

Remmy: He's just trying so hard to be there for everyone, and he is the glue in this situation, this whole thing. He, you know — just like Dean walked away and Cas needed to bring him back in, he wants to do the same thing for Sam, except Dean wants to give him a minute. Yeah.

Bea: Oh, I know. He cares about both of them so much.

Remmy: [softly] I know.

Bea: We haven't seen his grief in this episode. It's been him playing the catch net.

Remmy: Oh, no, do you want to talk about Cas' grief? What about when he reunites with Jack and the — oh my God!

Bea: We can talk about it then, but yeah.

Remmy: [strained laughter]

Bea: Oh my God.

Remmy: Yeah. Cas has been trying to hold everything together, but he does have his moment to crack, I think, so we'll get there, guys.

Bea: Augh. Yeah, he's taking comfort in the role that he can play there, and it's just difficult because when do their lives ever stick on script?

Remmy: Mmm.

Bea: But yeah, Sam's gone off, and Dean is taking this moment to inform the other people in Jack's life. We watch him leave a message for Mary, and just wrapping up like,”It happened so fast. Jack got sick and then he died. Yeah, we would have got ahold of you sooner…”

Remmy: It was this — this. Oof. Oof, oof, oof. So, yeah. So this is something that we've seen a lot of in all the episodes of season. We talked about how fantastic the writers have been, but this voice message that Dean leaves for his mom, it's just so real. All the emotion here, it's just so viscerally real.

Bea: It's really doing this fine weave of the characters who are on-screen with the characters who are not. There has been in the past, for Supernatural, that sometimes if the guest star or someone who has only a recurring part like Misha or Samantha here, they are not in an episode and then it's glossed over. That might be fine from the technical aspect, but as a viewer, it causes frustration of like, “Well, they were just here and that was an important thing that they were just through. How come they're not here now?” And so little moments like this, just the voice message being left to Mary, are things that help build the reality of their situation and make it that much more encompassing.

Remmy: Absolutely. Absolutely, and just the way that the actors also are delivering all these lines and all these emotions. It's just, again — kudos to Misha and Jensen and Jared. They bring so much depth into these lines and these emotions. These emotional beats, I should say. Yeah.

Bea: Yeah, and then the two things that I really caught on that Dean was saying in that message was, "We thought we could fix it like always."

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And that, "It would just be really nice to hear your voice."

Remmy: [softly] Yeah.

Bea: Saying that at the end of his message to his mom.

Remmy: As a sign-off.

Bea: I'm thinking again — you've just had the specter of death visit your house, and then here is your mother, who has been dead for the majority of your life, and you've only just got back. I can imagine that there is this degree of pensiveness that is introduced when you're — because yeah, when you're faced with someone that you love dying, it just really sandpapers off all of the external parts of yourself. It just shrinks you down into this really dense little core of like, what matters in my life? And then makes you first fearful of being able to lose it, and then grateful for having it. 

Remmy: Yeah, and for Dean to have someone to reach out to at all. You know, to acknowledge this support system that Dean could have. He's reaching out to his mom and he wants to hear her voice and it's just — he's having a hard time. Just the fact that there is someone out there that he can reach out to in moments like these, it's so good. I mean, it's powerful.

Bea: Yeah, that it's not just him and Sam as the two tent poles trying to keep this tent upright. They have these other foundations that will help catch them when they're wobbling.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: But while this conversation — I should say, while this message is being left, Sam has packed up his bag and he is leaving the bunker. Cas sees Sam going up the stairs, and goes out the door. And so Cas goes to find Dean.

Remmy: Yeah. Dean says, "Where's Sam?" and Cas gives him a look, and then we cut straight to outside at night.

Bea: Cas is driving his truck, and Dean is in the passenger seat, chastising him for letting Sam leave. Cas is like, you are giving conflicting instructions in this moment! "Give him space." Dean's like, “Yeah, but the space is a 6-foot radius. Just stand that far away from him. Don't let him wander.”

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah. Dean's like, "I can't believe you'd just let him go," and [laughs] if Cas wasn't driving he would be massaging his temples like, Dean...

Bea: Epic eye-roll happening. 

Remmy: [laughs] I do love that Cas is driving Dean in this moment, though.

Bea: Oh, me too. And the episode later in the season, episode 15, when Cas is then driving Sam, I'm like, Cas being the chauffeur! He's come so far!

Remmy: I know! And so Dean is worried [about] what could Sam possibly want. We know what Sam could want by going out, what we're all afraid of.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And we find Sam sitting outside of the Impala in the middle of the road, and oh, s***.

Bea: Yeah. It's never good to see a Winchester kneeling on gravel. You're just like, augh.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: And yeah, here he is. He's got his back up against the back tire of the Impala and Dean comes flying out of the truck. He wants to know if Sam has made a deal, and Sam almost looks baffled, like, that's where your mind went to?

Remmy: Yeah. He says, "A deal? What are you talking about? No. No. I — no. I just wanted to build a pyre. I wanted to do something."

Bea: Yeah, we picked our next steps, and now I'm putting myself towards it. 

Remmy: He wanted to build a pyre, and we have some cuts to Sam trying to cut down some trees and his axe breaks. [laughs] He wasn't even chopping with any particular violence. He was lashing out a little bit — a little bit. We're supposed to read into these flashes to him cutting down these trees to the pyre. He is letting out some of his grief here and the axe breaks, and then he's just — he says to Dean, "I couldn't even do that."

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: "I just wanted to do this one thing, and I couldn't even do this for Jack. I couldn't save him, and I couldn't even build his f****** pyre."

Bea: Yeah. I'm like — pushes up glasses — it's just another futile tool that they've been trying to use in relation to Jack. We're seeing that all of the efforts that they're putting into just doing something for him, whether it is saving him or just building him a good pyre, it's not working. Sam is really just taking that as he hasn't tried hard enough. "What good is the spell — what good is all of the lore if we can't save him?" Y'know?

Remmy: Yeah, but — I mean, augh.

Bea: And then Dean here, he goes, “At least you were there for him.”

Remmy: [sad] Oh, no. And they all three — again, support from within — they all three are kind of supporting each other in this moment. They're saying, you know, Dean's trying to make Sam feel better, and Sam's saying no, we were all there for him. You did — we all did the best we could.

Bea: Yeah, and it's a really nice shot, too. We have the truck on one side, the Impala on the other, and then there's this big beautiful tree that is — its canopy is at the top of the screen, over all of them. So it really just feels like this uniting force even though they feel so disjointed inside of themselves. They feel really discombobulated with what to do. 

Remmy: But as a trio they [laughs] Frankenstein's emotional support monster.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: But Dean says, "Tomorrow. Tomorrow, we'll say goodbye. Tomorrow, we'll build that pyre, and we'll do it together. But tonight—" [laughs] And Sam's kind of nodding along.

Bea: He's like, "This is really sage for Dean."

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah. "Tonight, we get loaded."

Bea: [laughs] I want — I want to take just a brief moment here to mention what Cas said. The way that Jack's story ended didn't feel right. They always thought that he was going on to do something else, but the way that Cas says that the certainty of death felt natural, even to angels, but not in this case. I was a little taken aback by the thought of like, is this just a different way that angels process death? Being like, no, that just happens and you have to be okay with it? Because I was like, that is not the Winchester credence whatsoever!

Remmy: [laughs] Well, I mean, as far as angels go, it's like, you know — angels have lived since the dawn of time. Angels have had their eternity and that's why The Empty is what it is. It's an eternal rest. Angels have had their life and when it comes to its conclusion, it's like, no matter how the angel died, it is a conclusion for them. Most of them died in battle and war. There's so few of them left.

Bea: We haven't really seen any angel retirement homes. 

Remmy: Exactly. Exactly. We don't see an angel as a child, or as like to a child, being snatched away cruelly and before their time and — I don't know. I don't know. It just goes back to, I think Jack's death is a different death than the kind of deaths that we've seen before. 

Bea: Yeah, because it didn't come at a puncture wound or a shot. It was just your body giving out.

Remmy: Yeah. And so I was kind of with Cas on this, right here. It was like, this just doesn't feel right.

Bea: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. So like you said, tonight we get loaded. There is this montage of Sam, Dean, and Cas drinking and reminiscing. They're eating chocolate bars together. They're laughing. They finish off a bottle of booze and they go and get more.

Remmy: [laughs] Cas comes back double-fisting.

Bea: [laughs] They raise their glasses up in salute to Jack, and eventually Sam calls it quits and he leaves. Cas is, by now, drinking straight from the bottle. And when he goes to leave, Dean is the one who asks in a bleary fashion, "We did everything we could, right?"

Remmy: Yeah. It was an undertone. He's speaking into his glass. He's deep into his cups, and he says, "We did everything we could, right?" as Cas is leaving the room. I will choose to believe that Cas didn't hear him, wasn't meant to hear him, because Cas just keeps walking.

Bea: Yeah, it's just hard because I'm like, that angel hearing...

Remmy: Oh, I know. I felt — I was like no — I was reaching to my TV calling Cas back. No, comfort him!

Bea: Don't leave him when he's this melancholy. [laughs]

Remmy: Yes, comfort him! Well, so we end on this melancholy note, right, but this whole little montage, this whole wake, um.

Bea: It's actually been very hopeful.

Remmy: It has been. It has been. It was very reminiscent, but in a like, "Oh, remember the time when...?" We don't hear any words here, but we can see in their faces the tone of the conversation.

Bea: Yeah, we can see the smiles. We can see the eye crinkles. We can see Misha break character for a moment when that snippet of nougat is hanging out of his mouth. 

Remmy: Yeah, I did like the Three Musketeers bars. It was like. [laughs] 

Bea: Call-back to a fandom obsession.

Remmy: Uh-huh, our nougat son. But we — [sighs] I don't know. As the night wears on, it's just — it's hard. It's still a time for grief.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah, the impetus behind the joy has waned and it's like, if it's an ocean wave then we're rolling back and we've just left grief on the ground once again.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, but Dean asks, we did everything we could, and he's thinking, you know, is Jack okay... I don't know.

Bea: Well, it's just — he's trying to accept it. But those old habits of, you know, “Is there something more we can do?” kind of crop up.

Remmy: Right? Right, but we cut to Heaven, right? 

Bea: Yeah! We're at Skipper's Beach Cafe and Jack is chowing into a burger, and I love Dean's little, "You don't have to inhale it," like, he's just complaining already. 

Remmy: Uh-huh.

Bea: Sam, Dean, and Cas are outside the Impala. It's a bright sunny day, and they are planning a route to Dodge City. Dean's taking a moment to show [Jack] how to read a map. 

Remmy: This is one of Jack's happiest memories in his short, short life, which makes me so sad, but this is Dodge City. This is the "Tombstone" [episode], season 13, and this is his one of his happiest times. His whole family — Cas, Sam, Dean, and Jack all on the Impala, all going to chase down some zombies.

Bea: Yeah, because it was right here that we just got Cas back; Dean's mood has done a 180. He believes in hope again, and so that mood is just infectious around all of them. They are going out on a case and they're bringing Jack with them, and you just feel the buoyancy.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: You feel the warmth. You feel the sunshine on your face.

Remmy: [laughs] Until the sun starts fluttering out.

Bea: Yeah, and Dean glitches a bit in his conversation and Jack: "Well, kazaa-wha?" He goes and he leaves his heaven. He finds that, outside the door, that power is surging in the hall as well. From a distance, there's some viscous goo that just comes flooding towards him.

Remmy: Yeah, and he runs for it.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah, like, I'm pretty sure that's sus right there.

Remmy: And I was like — well, my only nitpick here is like oh, how did he walk — did he know he was in Heaven the whole time? Did he just choose to leave? Could he have left whenever, but he only left when his memory started glitching out and there's something's wrong? I just wonder how aware he was in this moment.

Bea: Yeah, because Cas mentions later he suspects that because of Jack's nature of being half-human, half-angel, that he was more attuned to the fact that Heaven is a construct rather than just a place. So when he sees it flickering, it would just have clicked for him like, “Oh, okay.”

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, and he goes out to the hallway and Heaven is not having a good time. 

Bea: No. No.

Remmy: Now, did I — I of course know this is The Empty, but I could not project myself back into November 2018. Did I know this was The Empty? Did we know? To see that goo?

Bea: I can't remember if the teasers or if the stingers or anything showed us.

Remmy: Let's say — so we know The Empty is here.

Bea: Yeah. We know at least that there is a threat inside of Heaven, because nothing that moves that way... I mean, nothing that is that, that moves is okay.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And then when it moves that way, like okay. No, no. No, I'm going the opposite direction. Goodbye.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We cut to black on Jack trying to get away from this wave of darkness.

Bea: Yes. So yeah, back at the bunker, Dean is wobbling his way through a wake-up at the kitchen table. [laughs]

Remmy: Oh my gosh. He is not — oh, my back was hurting just looking at him.

Bea: Oof, yeah. He — there's some voices that are coming at a distance, and we'll find out they're coming from the library, and Dean's really just cotton-mouthed in the moment. He's aw, s***, I don't like this vertical thing. I'd rather be lying down.

Remmy: Who left him at the table?? I feel so bad. Cas?

Bea: Cas!

Remmy: Cas!

Bea: Cas — okay, he was drinking bottles by the end of it. Maybe he was like, I need a lie-down. [laughs]

Remmy: [laughs] But yeah. Dean got a rude wake-up call, still at the table in the kitchen. But he hears voices in the library.

Bea: Yeah. So he heads out there and then he enters mid-conversation. Sam and Cas and this third figure, this older looking woman. Cas is asking if it's possible, and Dean comes in and is basically like, “What?”

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, poor Dean. This whole scene, just playing catch-up. 

Bea: Yeah, and like the grumpy bear again. He's woken up and just isn't really happy to be awake, but he parses out quickly that hey, it's Lily Sunder standing here. And the first thing he goes is just, "You got old," and Lily's just little, "Oh, did I?" [laughs] 

Remmy: Yeah, "Thanks."

Bea: She came since Sam called her, and Dean again is just trying to figure out why everyone's okay with her being here. He's like, "Well, she tried to kill you, Cas," and Cas' face. [laughs] 

Remmy: "I'm aware."

Bea: He's just like, “Yeah, I remember,” and looks over at her with this little chipmunk smile that was going on.

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah, in this moment what I got from Cas, he was like, "Yeah, Dean, I know. Hey Lily, don't listen to him."

Bea: Basically, yeah! "I'm trying to do some kind of social etiquette here. Ignore this rude bastard."

Remmy: Uh-huh, uh-huh. "Dean, don't be rude to our guest." Also, maybe she can help.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah, pay attention. Look at the goal line.

Remmy: Mhmm.

Bea: And so Sam's breaking down that sometime after whiskey number five, he thought to look at the angel tablet. Dean does this namedrop here of well, only prophets can read Kevin's scribbles and Donatello isn't around. Just reminding us again. It's like the Mary phone call. There is this web of characters and these consequences that are still sitting out there.

Remmy: And these relationships, yeah.

Bea: Yeah. Better than consequences — relationships.

Remmy: But, but, I mean. As far as Donatello and Kevin go, I don't think that consequences is the wrong word to pull. Aww.

Bea: Yeah, woof. But Sam says that Lily's the next best thing that they have to a prophet because she's basically an angel expert and she's tapped into their magics. If they have anyone who could look at this resource, it would be her.

Remmy: Yeah. This is a resource yet untapped. 

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: And Lily says, "I can try," and she looks. She goes through these leaflets of Kevin's old notes and me, my little season 8, season 9, season 10 soul, I was like, "Oh my God, look!" Oh wait, no, I can't. Don't get ahead of myself. Season 8, season 9. [Kevin] was dead in season 10. Sorry guys.

Bea: Yeah, R.I.P.

Remmy: Um, but it was the same — I don't know if it was the same props, or if it was just a re-creation of some of Kevin's old notes, but I was like, that grid, that little Punnett square is all Kevin. I was like [fondly] Kevin! I didn't expect to get Kevin feels from a few pieces of paper, like, come on!

Bea: Aww.

Remmy: His cuneiform notes on the angel tablet, and Lily tries to take a look and she's — [sighs] They're waiting. It's like the Jeopardy music is playing, basically.

Bea: [laughs] And I'm sorry, I was just like, if I was in Lily's boat it'd be like, okay, I'm going to rifle through these papers then [after a] suitable time has passed: I don't got it, guys!

Remmy: I know.

Bea: There's no answer here. [laughs]

Remmy: I know, Dean's like, "So?" I'm like, Dean, shut up, but Lily says, "I can't read these."

Bea: Yeah, these aren't useful, but I know something that might be. It'll be her magic. And so she runs this idea past them of, you know, we could just use a little snippet, a little tidbit of Jack's soul, and Dean just does this, “Hard pass.”

Remmy: He — now, I am Dean in this scene, though, because when Lily said — I was a bit wary of Lily when she showed up and then when Lily said, "I can't read it, but..." and then she starts running down this soul magic, this Enochian soul magic, I'm like, okay, you're being a bit too helpful, Lily. What's the catch? I'm waiting for the catch, and so is Dean. He says, "Oh, okay. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. All right. What do you want?"

Bea: When Lily says, "Well, not all of his soul," then Sam's the one who's already puzzling through the pieces: well, how much would you need? Dean just looks incredulous —

Remmy: I know!

Bea: — that Sam is even contemplating.

Remmy: Considering this.

Bea: Yes. Yes.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And now Lily [laughs] kind of sasses Dean too, about like, "Well, how you so sensitively put it, my daughter died," like...

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: And then he has this moment. He looks like he feels bad but he's also processing why, like he wasn't expecting to feel bad.

Remmy: He — I mean, Dean is definitely on the defensive here because he is being attacked on all fronts. He's got Lily trying to sell this thing, this ritual, this spell that he is like, "Hell no. What is this, what are you talking about? We're not going to sacrifice Jack's soul. We're not going to bring Jack back just to sacrifice his soul," but Sam on his left is like, hand to his chin, “Hmm.” Puzzling it out.

Bea: And not to discredit Cas being there, because who knows how long Sam and Cas have been up, you know? If Sam woke with a start with this thought in mind, did he go to Cas and say, "This is something that we might possibly do. Should I reach out?" I can see Cas being like, "Go for it."

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: So when Dean comes in, Cas already has one foot in that boat, Sam is sitting a little wobbly in it, and they're like, "Come on, Lily. You're the captain. Let's go!" and Dean's like, "Do not pull off from that f****** dock! We need to talk about where you're going."

Remmy: Again, poor, hungover Dean who's just like, fast blinking at the room. Like, what is happening? What are you talking about?! This is not — No, I'm not on board. No.

Bea: Yeah, but everybody else kind of is. Cas jumps into thinking about what the steps would be to make this take place. He says, “Well, if Jack is in Heaven, then I might be able to pull his soul into his body, just for a few seconds.” Lily's like, yep, that's enough. “I could do something with that.” It would be sufficient to both resurrect Jack as well as cure the condition that he's in. 

Remmy: Yeah. "Can I get a thank you?" And this is where Dean says, "Yeah, you're being oh so very helpful. What do you want?"

Bea: Yeah. He's looking for the price tag. And she said, “Oh, well, now that you mention it…” Lily wants to trade for a favor, essentially. She wants to get into Heaven. This made me think of our conversation in episode 1, when we were like, would Nick get into Heaven? [laughs] She's basically said, "I killed a bunch of angels, and so I don't think that those doors are going to open for me."

Remmy: Right? She said —

Bea: The angels are gonna sit there being nay-nay.

Remmy: Yeah. She said, "I killed a bunch of angels, so I don't think they're going to welcome me with open arms," and that brought me again, yeah, like you said, straight back to episode 1 when we were talking about Nick. Would Nick go to Heaven if he were to die? And where I landed on it, I was like, well, you know, I don't think that Heaven would welcome the vessel of Lucifer even though it's not his fault. His actions were not Lucifer's actions, but angels are dicks that way. But here, we're told it's no one's — it's not Heaven's decision. It's not Hell's decisions. The demons and the angels don't decide. Anubis decides.

Bea: Well, that's coming up right soon here.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: Yeah. So once they hear Lily's offer, Sam and Dean are cloistered off on their own while Lily's looking through the rest of the papers, just for s***s and giggles, I guess. They're really just snagged on this idea of "not all of his soul", and Dean is just worried about the fact that it is soul-related and Sam is like, "Of all of us, I kind of get how important it is."

Remmy: Yeah, except you're the one who's advocating for it, Sam!

Bea: Because his axe broke earlier, which was his metaphor for being useful — for being helpful to Jack. He feels like he didn't do enough, and here he is with the opportunity to do one thing more.

Remmy: And it's just — I don't know. I'm just firmly in the Dean corner. This is a valid f****** concern, okay?

Bea: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I totally agree.

Remmy: But Sam is steamrolling over it, and uh.

Bea: It's Cas, it's Cas. I'm sitting here like — 

Remmy: Is it?

Bea: No, Cas is the one who finds the compromise, which is essentially [that] they can set up the spell all they want, but if Jack is in Heaven and Cas goes to talk to him, it will be Jack's decision whether or not they follow through with it.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: Cas is the one that is like, give my boy autonomy. We are not making decisions for him. We are going to tell him what is possible. We'll tell him the consequences of it, and then he can make an informed decision.

Remmy: But Dean is still very skeptical, and it's Sam coming in with the low blow: he appeals to Dean emotionally. He says, "To not do this feels like we would just be letting him die all over again. We have to try."

Bea: Yeah, just — but Dean is sitting there like, "Remember that price tag? I flipped it over and it's f****** expensive, yo. How do we fulfill our half of the deal?"

Remmy: Dean says, on Jack side too, Dean says — well, actually, Sam says, "This is what we do. We go to the ends of the earth and we try everything that we can, and we make the deal." And Dean is just like, "Um, yeah, and how has that been going for us? I mean, it always comes back to bite us in the a**!"

Bea: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Remmy: And on the other side of it, yeah, Lily's asking for the impossible here.

Bea: Yeah, and Dean wants Jack back too, absolutely, but he just doesn't trust the situation that they're in.

Remmy: No.

Bea: And yeah, Sam says, "Taking risks, making crappy deals: That's what we do." Like, that whole thing is lampshaded. I'm like — bangs the table — this season and the Winchesters' relationship with death, it's all over the page, even when it's not in an explicit situation like this where a main character has died. We see it with our side characters. We see it with the conflict of how they're dealing with Michael. There is this spotlight that comes in and out of focus but is constantly hanging over: how do the Winchesters deal with death? And have they evolved at all in the past 13 years?

Remmy: Now, in the first 10 minutes, I would have said yes, but guess f****** what!

Bea: They're regressing! It's hard. Growth is difficult.

Remmy: Growth is difficult. Augh. So now they're trying to figure out how to get what — how would they even go about getting what Lily wants.

Bea: Yes, and so Cas brings up that Anubis is the one who decides. He's the guardian of the dead, and they use justice's feather and figure out where the souls are going. And so we have this really quick rundown of how we are morphing Egyptian mythology to fit into this very Judeo-Christian take on religion as being God. 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to wrap your mind around it, a little bit. It's hard to mesh those ideas, because what Cas says is when God left, we needed a judge. You know, we have established that we have these minor gods, and Cas is saying Anubis was the one who was basically elected to be Heaven and Hell's judge on these matters. And I don't know if it was Lily or Dean who was like, "Anubis works for Heaven?" and Cas is very firm: "Not for Heaven. With Heaven.”

Bea: Yes. He got tapped. Yes.

Remmy: Yeah. I did like that distinction where, you know, we have really only established one particular Heaven and Hell, but — I don't know. I don't know. I thought that that line there, for Cas to say, "He does not work for Heaven. He works with Heaven." He is offering his services within his own religion, his own faith, his own, you know... I don't know. It just seemed to me it was like, let's not s*** on other religions because... [laughs]

Bea: Yeah, I really struggle with how Supernatural chooses to deal with other religions, and the gods and demigods. They tend to get brought in as monsters of the week, whereas I'm like [cringes] pulls the collar away from my throat. Are you sure that's what you want to do with these other religious figures? These mythological...

Remmy: Yeah, makes me want to go read some Neil Gaiman, American Gods, or [sighs] let's do modern theology a little right. I don't know. 

Bea: Yeah, well — and like you say, the distinction that he works with Heaven, it does a little bit of separation between the idea of this Christian behemoth that is the backstory area of Supernatural. It keeps it from gobbling up these other religious areas of the world. So I'm still sitting here like, I don't like when they bring up gods and goddesses, but at least you guys are trying not to throw salt in the wounds. I guess you can have a cookie crumb for that. 

Remmy: [laughs] They're doing the best they can. The writers — I mean, Meredith, you're doing the best you can.

Bea: And it's just sits here, in me, as more [cringe]. Any time we cross that territory, I get a little sketch.

Remmy: But we have Anubis who is the judge of souls, for all souls, and no, the angels don't decide. Saint Peter's not standing at that gate. The demons of Hell do not — if you haven't made a deal, they don't just decide who to drag down. There is a system in place, an unbiased system in place, where Anubis is the scale upon which your soul is weighed. 

Bea: And so we go from that scene now to this idyllic garden where this little girl is playing with her dog. 

Remmy: Yeah, and I pinged it as Kelly right away, but I was like, oh, where's Jack? 

Bea: Yeah. Basically. She is throwing the ball and she tosses it off into these trees and the dog goes to fetch it, but the dog doesn't come back. So she's calling after Roosevelt and then Jack approaches with the dog, and he's looking wistful. 

Remmy: Yeah, and he approaches Kelly and he kneels — Kelly still as a child, a young child — and he kneels at Kelly's feet. He says — well that actually that sounds more like a supplication [laughs]. No.

Bea: Just extends a sword out to her. [laughs] 

Remmy: [laughs] He approaches Kelly and he kneels down to eye level, and he says, "I'm Jack. I'm your son," and the young girl is confused, and the next that we cut to her, she's not a young girl anymore. She's Kelly. Kelly, I missed you!

Bea: Yeah!

Remmy: Kelly, hi! And she also has this moment of confusion. She says, "Jack?"

Bea: Yeah, the camera swivels behind Jack's head, and it changes her from a young girl into the Kelly that we know. At first she's just so happy. She hugs Jack and she puts her hands in his hair and — 

Remmy: Oh my God.

Bea: — a surprised, "You were just a baby!" and Jack goes, "Well, I grew up."

Remmy: Yeah. She says, "What happened?" and Jack heartbreakingly has to remind her, "Well, you died."

Bea: Yeah, she places herself very slowly, and when Jack confirms it’s Heaven, he looks sad to inform her of this.

Remmy: Yeah, and Kelly is still a bit joyous, like, it's okay. 

Bea: She's overwhelmed. She just has so much joy right now. 

Remmy: Yeah, I know, and like you said, Jack is reluctant to reveal to her like, no, you died. You're dead. But she's okay with that. She — and you know what really struck me? Jack said, "You died," and she says, "The day you were born, right?"

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And it wasn't like she said — I wish I had written down the quote. The way that she worded it was striking. She said, "I died the day you were born." Not "I was killed" or — I don't know. The way that she said it and the words that she chose to say it, it was just...

Bea: There was no blame associated with it. It was just a statement of fact.

Remmy: Right. "I died the day that you were born." Because you see so much fear and Jack in this moment, like, "I killed you," but Kelly does not see it that way. 

Bea: I almost took some of Jack's apprehension [as] there was going to be this bubble popped. She's so happy to see him and that overwhelming joy she has, it sours quickly and she gets really sad. She just starts going, “No, no, no, no.”

Remmy: Oh my God.

Bea: Because if she's in Heaven and Jack's here, then...

Remmy: She has this dawning moment of realization. She's like, "But what are you doing here?" And then she says no, no, no. "No, baby. No. No."

Bea: Yeah. "Castiel was supposed to take care of you."

Remmy: She's framing his face in her hands and she's just so so loving and desperate and just so much emotion in this scene. So much emotion in the scene and whoops, I'm crying again. Okay. 

Bea: Oh, I loved that we got this reunion, albeit heartbreaking, because the absence of Kelly in Jack's life is such a heavy shadow that is carried with him. Like when we were in the first scene and Jack had just passed away, Sam went and packed his bag, Dean was leaving voice messages, and Cas was beside Jack's bed. He picked up Kelly's photo and was — there is that weight of his promise to her, and the fact that he failed. 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: And yeah, so here she is on the other side.

Remmy: Yeah, and like you said, Kelly said — yeah, and Kelly said, "No, Cas was supposed to — Castiel was supposed to take care of you," and she doesn't even complete that thought because Jack cuts her off and he says, "He did, he did." He's trying to reassure Kelly. He says Cas, Sam, and Dean, they did the absolute best they could.

Bea: Yeah, and it just didn't go as planned. 

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And he had to come here to see if she's okay. And so Kelly asks what's wrong.

Remmy: Right.

Bea: And I mean, I can see from Jack's perspective: okay, you just left your Heaven, you're wandering the halls, you could do whatever reunions — and granted, he really only has one on the table — but the fact that he saw that shadow in the hallway, and his first thing was to go and find Kelly and make sure she was safe. 

Remmy: Right, right. It wasn't get away or get out or — it was just... “If Heaven's in trouble, my mother's here and we're gonna check in.” Yeah.

Bea: He is still being protective about his family even post-death.

Remmy: Yeah, yeah.

Bea: Good boy. 

Remmy: Yeah, huh. Well, yeah, so Kelly asks what's wrong, and Jack looks pensive. 

Bea: Yes, and we're left on that note there with them. [In] the next scene, Lily is handing over the notes of what she's written out — that Jack's got to do once he resurrects. We covered the conversation that happened between Sam and Dean here, and just the fact that Dean is sitting there and although he could be on-board with the results, he still doesn't trust the source of what is happening. 

Remmy: Yeah. He doesn't feel like he has the whole picture yet. 

Bea: No. Cas comes in and he says that all the gates to Heaven are open and that angel radio is sending out a distress signal. 

Remmy: Dean, standing there, he's just like, "Awesome."

Bea: "The f*** does that mean?" [laughs] 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. I loved — I loved every reaction in this scene, where Cas comes in. He says — he puts a hand on the war table — he's like, "All of Heaven's gates are open and angel radio is one big distress signal," and he's just looking at them like — well, Dean's looking back like, well, cool. What does that mean? 

Bea: “Let me just pencil that in, okay. We'll deal with that in half an hour.”

Remmy: Oh my God, and Cas is just like, "I don't know, but I have to go."

Bea: Well, Sam says to Cas, “Go check it out,” and they'll pray when they're ready. Cas has got to go to Heaven anyways, but now he just has further incentive to — you know, if we're on the clock, if we're getting all these ducks in a row, then please go and figure out what is causing distress in Heaven, especially if you've got to be there. 

Remmy: Well, also I assume there's some worry for Jack and all of this. Jack dies, Heaven bursts f****** open, and there's a distress signal going out? If that's where Jack is — let's talk about — I mean, we talked about Jack and Kelly. Jack goes to check on Kelly. What are the Winchesters thinking in this moment? "Well, we need to go to Jack."

Bea: Yeah, shut down the worry with regards to Heaven and just hone in on what it means for their loved ones. And if Jack is indeed in Heaven, then there's going to be a threat against him. 

Remmy: Yeah. Cas on a mission. 

Bea: Yeah, and then the next scene is them doing this f****** painting on hardwood!

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: They have their little red mystical paints, and they are just — it's red! Slapping that down on the hardwood. 

Remmy: It's seen worse. That floor's seen worse. We know it. 

Bea: Are they doing upkeep? They gotta be. 

Remmy: We're smack dab in the middle of the library too. I mean, come on.

Bea: You guys need to invest in drop cloths and just paint on the tarps. 

Remmy: Hey, Sam's got a whole hunter hub now. He's got plenty of indentured labor if he so chooses.

Bea: You'd think.

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: Go draw in the dirt. I don't know. 

Remmy: He's got a maid service. We've got it. They've got a chore calendar on the refrigerator.

Bea: Spin the chore wheel and it's like, okay, Maggie, it's your turn to do the dishes. She's like, "I had it last week!" 

Remmy: [laughs] And and — so they're laying out the summoning circle, and Sam is off — 

Bea: [laughs] The least subtle bastard. 

Remmy: Oh my God, I know, right? So in the talk right before this with Sam and Dean, Sam was like, "We have to try this. We have to try, so you know what, you're not on board? Get on board." And at this point we're framing Dean's biggest hang-up to be his distrust in Lily. 

Bea: Yeah, we've worn off — we've eroded all of his other concerns. Now — okay, if we get you over this one then we've got you into the golden mile.

Remmy: Unsubtle Sam is unsubtle, and he says, "So I got — there's just one more thing we need. I'm gonna go."

Bea: Yeah. "I'm gonna go to the place and grab the thing."

Remmy: Exactly, exactly. And as he's leaving the library, he shoots Dean a look and he looks at Lily like, frickin’ figure yourself out. Let's go. 

Bea: Yeah, and I'm like, you're not being subtle. Lily can see you doing this, so Lily's like, “Great, I'm entering the worst counseling session of my life up coming here. Neither one of us are therapists.” [laughs]

Remmy: And also neither one wants to have this talk.

Bea: No!

Remmy: But Dean is the one who calls Lily out. 

Bea: Yeah, he extends the olive branch and says, “Well, maybe we got off to a bad start,” and Lily is like, okay. “Yeah, that's enough feelings for now. I accept your apology.”

Remmy: Except Lily's "apology accepted" and Dean's like, but something still not fitting right.

Bea: Yeah. You were Alicia Witt two seasons ago — 

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: — and now you're not, so why are you stopping using your magic? Why are you growing old? Because if you have a reason why you're not using that magic anymore, then why the f*** would we trust you to put some whammy on Jack?

Remmy: Right? Right, right. If this magic is so kosher then why did you stop using it? This is what's not adding up in my brain. If this is safe for Jack then why are you letting yourself die rather than use this magic that you're proposing that we thrust onto Jack? And Lily, it's just — you insensitive f****** bastard. 

Bea: Yeah, and well, it's not just what is the loopholes there. If Lily is so afraid of going to Hell then why would she even risk dying? You know, if you have this spell that lets you just keep yourself alive, why would you stop that and risk Hell?

Remmy: Exactly.

Bea: You know, so it's on both sides there. It's either the magic is doing something bad or you have some ulterior motives behind this that you're not telling us. 

Remmy: Yeah, and Lily says, "You want my ulterior motives? How about the fact that I — a hundred years ago, I struck out on this revenge mission, where I swore to myself that no matter what it took I would kill Ephram." Oh! Ooh, I remembered!

Bea: Isham.

Remmy: Oh, f***. [laughs] 

Bea: [laughs] I'm sorry.

Remmy: [laughs] I was doing a little victory dance.

Bea: I was just gonna say, I hate to cut your victory lap short. [laughs] 

Remmy: [laughs] Oh, no, I was so proud of myself. F***. 

Bea: It's okay. I'll cut this out. Say Isham really clearly; I'll dub it in. 

Remmy: I don't need your charity.

Bea: [laughs] 

Remmy: So we [laughs] anyways. So she said, "I swore on everything that I am that I would not stop until I got revenge for the death of my daughter. Isham took my daughter from me, and I knew that even if it took my whole soul, if it took every last part of me, I would kill Isham no matter what. I did kill Isham, except that it didn't burn my whole soul. I still have a sliver of it left — a whisper of my true self. I didn't spend all that I am on revenge, and if my daughter — my beautiful, beautiful young girl — is—” Sorry, I'm getting really into this little monologue going on here.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: "If my daughter—" [no,] not if.

Bea: "My daughter May is in Heaven, and if I have a chance of reuniting with her, I have to take it."

Remmy: Yes. Yes, and this is my chance and if I can't — if I do use the magic anymore, then I'm not going to burn my chance to be with my daughter in Heaven.

Bea: Remmy. 

Remmy: Yes.

Bea: Start my 20-seconds counter on John feels, for a second, okay.

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: Okay, tell me when it's ready.

Remmy: Twenty, nineteen... [laughs] 

Bea: Okay. So essentially what Lily did was she had a vengeance plot and she threw herself 100% into it, not expecting to come out of it — 

Remmy: Twelve, eleven...

Bea: — and so the consequences that — I'm still talking about Lily!

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: Don't count this yet. I was warning you. So when you throw yourself in 100% and you are expecting certain death, you are expecting annihilation, it leads you to not have to deal with the consequences of your actions. And now — 20-second timer — 

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: — John was also someone — we can see the storyline for him ended in his death, because could you imagine the storyline where he beats Yellow Eyes and then has to deal with the repercussions of raising his kids for 20-odd years in the light that he did, and moving forward into a new way? There is such a different approach to your goals when you don't expect to make it out alive. So here Lily is, she has to change tactics after spending one hundred years on one path and go, "Oh s***. There are consequences to what I did."

Remmy: Exactly.

Bea: And now that vengeance is done, what do I do in the lull of quiet that comes after it?

Remmy: We had a very similar sentiment just three episodes ago with "Nightmare Logic" where Bobby, he threw himself into the war that killed his son, and he never expected to make it out of it alive. And then when he did, he similarly was struggling on what's next. What it — can I live my life from here, when I was operating on this foregone conclusion of what I thought my life would be? So yeah. Yeah.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: Lily — it's the same for Lily here. She's like, "I would have given everything to complete my mission, to get revenge for the death of my daughter."

Bea: "And I was planning on giving everything, but the fact that that didn't happen means now I have to have a new plan."

Remmy: So, oh my God, I so hope that you edit out like 80% of the bulls*** I just spouted on Lily.

Bea: [blows raspberry]

Remmy: Because you said it so much better. [laughs]

Bea: Come on!

Remmy: Come on, come on. [laughs] Yes. That is where Lily's coming from here. She is saying that I stopped using my magic not because it was destroying me. I stopped using a magic because it was my only chance at salvation.

Bea: Yeah, because I am not destroyed.

Remmy: Yes. Yes, and so she defiantly glares up at Dean and she says, "Are you happy now? Is that satisfactory to you?"

Bea: Yeah, and the — I mean, the parallels aren't really happening yet, albeit all throughout the episode they are, but the fact that she is sitting here saying, "I have the chance to reunite with my child and I'm going for it. Isn't that the same as what you're doing?" Basically.

Remmy: Right. Right, exactly.

Bea: Like, you are throwing all in on this. You have to trust me when I say I am doing the same thing.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, and we have Cas in Heaven.

Bea: Cas is the "Hewwo?"

Remmy: Hello?

Bea: Is anybody thewe?

Remmy: Oh my God. [laughs] 

Bea: And there's black puddles all over Heaven. You know it's not good. You don't spring oil leaks in Heaven, okay? 

Remmy: Right.

Bea: And then there's a dead angel lying there. It's Zuriel, and Dumah's also there, and she revives as Castiel approaches. She's retching and Cas asks what happened, and she just doesn't know. "It went black," and then when this thing touched her, her vision was gone. She f****** blacked out. 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, and Cas says, "I have to go find Jack."

Bea: Yeah, "I don't have time to sit here. You're okay, right? Do you need cookie?" And she's like, "No, do not leave me alone."

Remmy: Right, right. I felt so bad for Dumah in this moment. She was like, "What?" Because she — Dumah, I'm — okay. This is the first time that we've seen Dumah this season, so this is our first, "Hi, Dumah!" thoughts of Bea and Remmy.

Bea: The angel of dreams.

Remmy: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So I like Dumah a lot, and I was feeling for her. When she said, “Don't leave me alone” — basically, can I come with you? — I was like, oh, my heart. She just cares so much and she was — in the last season — she was so concerned about the diminishing number of angels and the fall of Heaven. For her to wake up and see one of her last brothers dead next to her, I was just like, f***. 

Bea: Yeah, honestly, and here is another — one of your last living brothers, who has not shown himself to be 100% on your side. He's not in your cause although he understands your plight and can sympathize. She still reaches out to him as being like the touchstone here, for trying to keep comfort. 

Remmy: Right.

Bea: You just had this black ominous wave sweep through Heaven and it knocked an angel unconscious and it could happen again at any moment. It's just like, if these are my last moments, I don't want to be alone. 

Remmy: Oof. So Cas takes Dumah with him as he's searching for Jack. 

Bea: Yeah, they go to Jack's heaven, but he's already left. Naomi shows up now.

Remmy: Naomi! Sorry, dun dun dun is more appropriate than the three exclamation points I have next to Naomi's name here.

Bea: [laughs]

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Naomi shows up to say Jack's already gone.

Bea: Yes! I love that we got her back too.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. That was a pleasant surprise.

Bea: Yes. Yes, his — Jack's angel side knew that this was Heaven, and so Dumah asks what's happening. She's deferring to her leader, looking to see what is going on in Heaven. Naomi says that "it" stormed the gates and it's defeated their defenses, and she reveals that it's the Shadow that rules The Empty.

Remmy: Yeah, and this is a nightmare for Cas, right? He's now confronting the monster of his dreams in Heaven.

Bea: Yeah. And Naomi essentially drops the information here that The Empty has called dibs on Jack and she wants to give him over. They don't have a choice, because if Heaven falls then that 46-odd billion souls are going to be cast to the wind. Here she finally says to Cas, "Help me," and Cas is just like, "F***. No."

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. "No, I'm going to find Jack."

Bea: Yeah, and then Naomi all of a sudden is overtaken by the Shadow and Cas is like, bailout. Goodbye!

Remmy: [laughs] Hey, to be fair, Naomi does tell him to run.

Bea: Yeah, but still. He has zero hesitation — like, no, we can save you! No, no, no — goodbye! So then back to the bunker.

Remmy: Yes.

Bea: Okay, so Sam is reciting the spellwork. Dean and Lily are running the steps that are part of the spell. Lily's blood is used in the summoning, and then Anubis appears in this plaid suit, this tweed suit, and goes, "Oh, the brothers Winchester. Your files have come across my desk many times."

Remmy: [laughs] And Sam says, "Oh, we've died, but we've never met you."

Bea: Yeah, and so we get another quick glimpse into the way that the show is blending the mythos of Egypt with Christianity here. Essentially, that Death and her reapers do all the face time, but Anubis is the paperwork in the background.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. He's just pushing papers. He's sorting those files.

Bea: Yeah, just making sure all the trains are running on time, basically. He cuts to the chase, asking what they want, and they explained the situation with the Lily. He goes, "Well, that's against protocol. But I mean, we're here anyways, so..."

Remmy: I did like him a lot. Let's say — let's take a little break and just say I'm instantly in love with this character.

Bea: Yes. I really dug him too, yeah.

Remmy: Yeah. He was very compelling and affable and just — I don't know. There was a draw to him and like I'm here for it.

Bea: I like comparing him against the thought of his father, you know. Osiris that we saw in season seven was kind of this overdramatic guy, would just pick people at random and be like, "Okay, deal your dirty laundry," and then get — there was a lot of showmanship. There was a lot of performance that was going on with the judgments being passed there. Where here, we have Anubis and he's: "No, I sit in my office and it's quiet time."

Remmy: I mean, do you want me to get into — okay 20 seconds of thoughts.

Bea: 20 seconds.

Remmy: [laughs] So when Osiris was passed over for this judge of Heaven and Hell [position] for his son, then Osiris was put out of a job and Osiris got to just have millennia — all these millennia — of living his life until he didn't have his followers anymore. He didn't have a name on the lips of worshipers, and he kind of devolved into a monster of the week, right? Because he wasn't judge of Heaven and Hell anymore. He was just someone who could pick a random off the street and eat his heart.

Bea: And ruin their day. [laughs]

Remmy: [laughs] Exactly. It's just so — I don't know. If we want to try to tie this into some bigger mythos, "Hammer of the Gods". These gods work off of a currency of worship, and when they don't have worship, they don't have strength.

Bea: Is that a Supernatural thing, or is that a Good Omens thing? Or not Good Omens, American Gods.

Remmy: I'm not sure. Um, long story short, "Hammer of the Gods" did put down some foundations. Like, "I have power because I was granted power by my worshipers."

Bea: Okay.

Remmy: It's — I don't know. Also, that's kind of just my default on modern gods.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah. So, Abacus.

Remmy: Abacus? Oh! Oh, yeah.

Bea: Anubis opens up his briefcase and he's like, "What? Are you expecting the Scales of Justice?"

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Nah, we have an abacus here. Lily is told to hold her hand over it, but it clacks to black and he's basically like, "I'm sorry."

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Sam is immediately like, "Nope, we can't accept this. Change it."

Remmy: Yeah, and this is when Anubis reveals that oh, I don't have authority over the weight of your soul. Heaven doesn't have authority over the weight of your soul. Hell only has authority over the way of your soul if you were to sell it to them. But you and only you define your worth. 

Bea: Yeah, it's up to people's choices. It's very The Good Place, in that at the moment of your death your deeds are tallied, and then that's when it's determined. It's on you, basically, wherever you're going. So Lily — Lily Sunder has a lot of regrets now. 

Remmy: [laughs] Oh my God. Okay, that.

Bea: Dah-dum cha. [laughs]

Remmy: [laughs] Oh my God. Okay.

Bea: It was bad, okay.

Remmy: No, it was great. That was glorious. That was beautiful. My only thing on this is [that] it is a subversion of the canon up to this point. This is something that Sam and Dean didn't know, the Winchesters didn't know about the nature of death, and where is your soul — what determines where your soul is going.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: Because we've had all these throwaway lines or about, you know, talk s***, get hit, go to Hell, or — 

Bea: [laughs] 

Remmy: [sighs] Or the dick angels upstairs will bar you passage. To have Anubis here saying no, your soul is just the sum of your decisions and that is free will but — it's different. It's a subversion of the narrative as we've had it so far. 

Bea: Yeah, and it gives us a chance to think about what's it going to mean when our characters pass away.

Remmy: No, f*** you. 

Bea: We're not thinking about it, don't worry, but it gives you the chance.

Remmy: [laughs] No!

Bea: So, in Heaven.

Remmy: Yeah, in Heaven. Back in Heaven.

Bea: Yes. So Cas and Dumah go to find Kelly's heaven, and Cas is saying, "I know him. He'll be here."

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And sure enough, Jack and Kelly have barricaded themselves indoors. Kelly's, "What's wrong?" and Jack's like, "Get inside!" Basically, zombie invasion rules. He is already speaking about how he's going to protect her. He'll distract them so that she could run. She smiles, just so endeared, and she says that she's not going anywhere. 

Remmy: [softly] Yeah.

Bea: But Jack hears Cas' voice outside. And so Jack opens the door and Cas just like, brims with this laugh, almost — 

Remmy: Oh my God. This is the most — 

Bea: Gives him this tight hug.

Remmy: This is the moment when we see the true reveal of Cas' own feelings on Jack's death. I mean, when Jack actually died, Cas was sheltering himself in this role of making sure that Sam and Dean were okay. Here, to have Jack open the door and Cas to be confronted with his dead son... 

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And Cas didn't even know if Jack would even be in Heaven.

Bea: Exactly. There was that uncertainty and so in this moment — like, he gets to Heaven. Okay, Jack's here. Jack's in danger. Now, he gets to see Jack and Jack is okay.

Remmy: It's just monumental relief and grief. I mean, Cas seems very happy in this moment to be reunited with Jack, except that it is just an opening of the floodgates. This is everything that Cas had been holding in, I feel, up to this point.

Bea: Yeah, that to have this much joy upon reunion, you can think about the cavity in his chest where Jack's absence sits.

Remmy: Exactly, and this hug was so good and then it might have been trumped!

Bea: A one-two punch! It gets so much better!

Remmy: And then Cas turns to Kelly and Kelly draws him in. Again, there's just so much love. There's so much joy and love and warmth in both of their faces. Kelly draws Cas into a hug and [wails] Cas!

Bea: He's just apologizing. The first thing he does is apologize and say, "I failed you," and here we can see Kelly insisting, "No, you didn't. Jack is wonderful."

Remmy: This is a level of emotion that we very, very rarely see from Cas and I am here for it. For Cas to tuck himself into Kelly's shoulder and to just say, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." It's just like — oh.

Bea: Oh, we're here.

Remmy: [laughs] Oh, is this — is this?

Bea: That was a stiletto through my ribs. I'm bleeding. It's fine, though. I'm happy.

Remmy: Cry number three. Yeah, let's go.

Bea: Oh. Woof. Yeah, and also that little insight into the fact that Jack and Kelly might have bunkered themselves in here, but they've been talking and getting to know one another!

Remmy: I know!

Bea: I'm stumbling over my words with how much emotion [I'm feeling]. They get an actual chance to bond. 

Remmy: Yes. They've been — again, there's so much joy in this moment for Jack to say to Cas, "Yeah, we're good. We're okay. We're safe. We've been getting to know one another. It's been good." And as for Kelly to turn to Cas and say, "He is a remarkable boy, and you did a good job."

Bea: Proud parents.

Remmy: I know! And for Cas, we talked about his guilt and grief for having failed Kelly, but this is the absolution for Cas.

Bea: Yeah. Yeah. He can take that weight off of his shoulders. He's unshackled from that guilt. 

Remmy: I'm — yes. Cas enters into the quick one-two run down of, "Jack. This is why I'm here."

Bea: Yes. Cas says that they can bring Jack home, but they'll need to draw on Jack's soul in order to do it. And right away Kelly is not really keen on this. She's saying that it's too much of a risk, but Cas brings up the fact that it's not only Jack's life at stake here because Heaven is in trouble. Cas does a quick explanation that angels don't go to Heaven, they go to The Empty instead. If Jack is half-angel, half-human, then this Entity is coming after Jack, but it will leave if it has Jack — or if Jack is alive. 

Remmy: Yeah, basically, "Jack, you are currently up for grabs."

Bea: Yeah. "You're the lynchpin in this moment."

Remmy: Right. Right. "But if we remove you from this equation, if you are no longer — if The Empty no longer has a claim — AKA you are alive — then we can put a stop to all of this." And Dumah, who we haven't seen so far in this scene, but Dumah says, "That's smart. Clever. Yeah."

Bea: And just the tone of voice, it's a little shiver. You're like, okay, what happened here? And sure enough, Dumah's approaching and she has been possessed by the Shadow. 

Remmy: Yes. Yes.

Bea: So dun dun dun. 

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: To the bunker!

Remmy: [laughs] 

Bea: Sam, Dean, and Lily are going through the cleanup, and Sam is still doing his best to follow through on getting Jack back, saying, "You know, you can still do the spell," and she's kind of like, "F*** that. I'm leaving."

Remmy: "That wasn't the deal. If you can't help me, I can't help you."

Bea: Yeah, that price tag? It's attached. You guys saw it. You know it's there. 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. She says, "I have to go," and Dean stands up and he says...

Bea: Well, Sam's little, "He's our kid."

Remmy: Yeah. Oh my God, yeah.

Bea: And still Lily wants to leave. 

Remmy: Right. Right, right, but Dean basically says, "You monster. You must be a monster. There is no humanity left in you, because if there was, there is no way in any universe that you would allow others to experience this loss that you yourself experienced. This pain."

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: When there's something in your power that you could do to prevent it.

Bea: Yes. And it made me think back to when we were talking about "Optimism", that there's the two approaches that you can have to a situation, you know: I went through this so I want other people to have to suffer it, or, I went through this and I don't want anyone to have to go through this. Dean is the one that sits more on the protecting people from going through the terrible situations he's been in. Here, he is accusing Lily of being on the other side of that equation. You climbed that ladder and then you pulled it up from under you. Why can't you give us a hand? 

Remmy: Exactly, exactly. I mean, the same thing on Dean. Like we said earlier in this episode, Dean is feeling this isn't fair.

Bea: Well, Dean started off being not at all on this page and they've worn him down, they've won him over, and now he's like, "Wait. All of that work, and now you're telling me, 'okay, just kidding!' We're not following through?"

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: So yeah, the fact that Dean is someone who tries to protect people from going through these situations, and Lily's like, you know, you're on your own — two middle fingers way up — that just draws the line there for Dean. "You're inhuman."

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, because no one with any shred of humanity could possibly think that this is okay. 

Bea: No one with a shred of humanity could have the solution to bringing back a dead kid and be like, "Well, you didn't get my half of the deal. Bye, b****."

Remmy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. 

Bea: So we're on that real tense note, and we jump back to the other tense note of being in Heaven with The Empty. The Empty is stepping forward towards Kelly, Jack, and Cas. Kelly goes right in front of Jack and Cas prowls forward. 

Remmy: Yes. Yes, this whole scene is so good. It's so good. 

Bea: It's so good, and the actress who plays Dumah — the way that she plays Dumah possessed by The Entity? Hot. Damn. 

Remmy: Just call it The Empty. I'm gonna call it The Empty. Just [laughs] FYI. 

Bea: Okay. Yeah, and so The Empty is just going like, "The angels are mine," and when Jack or Cas or Kelly — if any of them try to talk, she immediately screams, "Stop interrupting! Start paying attention," and you're like, oh, f***. 

Remmy: Yeah. I know. Shadow Dumah was killing it.

Bea: So good.

Remmy: And you know [laughs] on a bit of a humorous note, it brought me back to when we knew this episode was airing and we knew that some other actor or actress was going to be playing The Empty. Coming off of what Misha did with The Empty — with The Entity...

Bea: The f****** accent. 

Remmy: Yeah. We were like, how the hell is anyone going to take that and adapt that into their own...

Bea: Something scary!

Remmy: The Empty, right? Like, how on earth — basically, Misha, you just screwed over anyone and everyone who ever tries to play The Empty beyond this point. So we were like, what is this even going to look like? What is The Empty going to be outside of Misha Collins? And for the Dumah actress — so sorry, we don't know your name. I beg forgiveness, because I love you so much — 

Bea: She's so good. 

Remmy: She knocked it out of the park. She brought a manic-ness to it that just translated so well onto the character of The Empty and she just — her body ticks. [laughs] I don't want to call it body language, but her mannerisms and her — just the crazy eyes, but it was good. It was good.

Bea: Erica Cerra.

Remmy: Erica Cerra, good job. Thumbs up.

Bea: Hell yeah, because it's like you're saying: to have Misha's almost comical accent and little [imitating] "Ah, really?" Just the way that it was going — how do you find terror? How do you make this into a threat against Heaven? And Erica here f****** sold it.

Remmy: Slam dunk.

Bea: [sings] Loved it. 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah, she's killing it, and just — you talk about chilling, you talk about terror.

Bea: Shouting followed by whispers. I'm like, oh no, decibel range! I don't like it.

Remmy: And she's looking at Jack and Kelly and she's saying, "Jack you're coming with me now," and she darts a look to — I'm whispering into the mic now because it's like we're ramping up the tension. She darts to look to Cas and she says, "Oh. They look so scared," but she's taking joy in it. 

Bea: Yeah, "Does it hurt you?"

Remmy: And she says, "Does it hurt you?" and Cas just has this slap to the f****** face moment of realization, that she is taking so much joy in the fact that this — to take Jack away, to terrify these people that she cares about — it is hurting... 

Bea: It's chilling. 

Remmy: It's chilling, and it's a threat over Cas. Maybe even — The Entity will care more about Cas than it does about taking Jack. Taking Jack away is just something that is hurting Cas, and there's these long-standing resentments here between Cas and The Entity. 

Bea: Well —

Remmy: I know, it's like it's a coin of two heads, a little bit. 

Bea: Two sides of the same coin. 

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Okay. So The Entity was asleep and then woke up because of Cas' annoyance, and I guess has gotten increasingly irate since waking up. Just the way that it is phrasing The Empty, saying, "Where I'm taking you is worse than Hell. At least Hell is something," and like — I feel like there is this overarching relishing in causing this chaos, this pain. I think that the fact that it is involving Cas and his loved ones is just icing on the cake. 

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't know [whether] to read it as — because like I said, there was a moment of realization on Cas' face, so [that] invited me to think: what is The Entity really here for? Is it here for Jack, or is it here for Cas? But like you said, The Entity was awoken by Cas and it does not seem like it has gotten back to sleep, and that growing irate-ness is something that I absolutely would see to be...

Bea: A rivalry or a grudge. 

Remmy: Well, that — I'm just — all I can think is the mania in The Entity's mannerisms, and the maliciousness...

Bea: See, the mania I attribute to the fact that this is something that has been on its own since the dawning of time, and has had quiet charges and it's had such a long stretch of quiet that it was able to fall asleep. So this is something that has been on its own. I'm like, you get a little stir-crazy. You get a little cabin crazy.

Remmy: But now there's a maliciousness in it that we didn't even really see and our first introduction to The Empty, when it was trying to reason with Cas: "Go back to sleep." We saw that mania, but we didn't see that maliciousness.

Bea: Yeah. I just feel like the absence of maliciousness on that first approach was because The Empty figured it had the upper hand, and then when Cas wouldn't kowtow then that became the kernel that would seed this resentment.

Remmy: Talk about having the upper hand. Now that Cas is alive, now that The Entity let Cas go, The Entity has no domain over Castiel as he is now. The Entity can't do jacks*** to Castiel. That — talk about a seed of resentment. 

Bea: Is that true though? Because Zuriel, lying on the ground there — was Zuriel dead? Because we seem to get the feeling from Dumah that he was. 

Remmy: Yeah, but The Entity obviously has no interest in killing Cas. 

Bea: The joy is not in killing Cas. The joy is in making Cas suffer. So we have Cas charg[ing] at Dumah as The Empty, and he is no match for her. 

Bea: No. F****** does Tekken 3 kicks through the air, gets thrown aside. And even Kelly comes up while The Empty is kicking Cas. The empty throws Kelly as well. It's at this moment that Cas hears Dean's prayer basically saying that they have Jack's body prepped. Lily, she kisses her daughter's little photo in the little tableau, and Cas knows that now is the time if they're going to save Jack. 

Remmy: Yeah Dean prays to say, "We're ready when you are. I hope you're ready. Amen." [laughs] I liked his little amen at the end. 

Bea: [laughs] Yeah. And so Jack now — okay, you tossed Cas. You tossed Kelly. Jack steps in to fight The Empty, but The Empty grabs a hand around Jack's neck and starts choking him. Cas goes on a different tactic and decides to strike a deal. He'll go in Jack's stead. 

Remmy: "Take me," he says.

Bea: "I'm the one who woke you up. Take me in his stead."

Remmy: Yeah. "I'm the one you really want." And The Empty is, again, I just — chills down my spine over this actress who...

Bea: Yeah, Erica's delivery here. 

Remmy: [sighs] Oh my God, okay. [laughs] I don't even know. Obviously, I'm having a bit of a feel right here because we are making a deal. We are sacrificing ourselves for the ones that we love. He says, "Take me," and The Entity says, "But you're already mine. I don't need anything from you. You already belong to me." And Cas says, "Not now. Not eons until — there could be eons until I die. I'm immortal, b****." [laughs] 

Bea: Yeah, "But I can go now willingly if you'll accept this." And yeah, The Empty just goes: "Deal."

Remmy: Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, and instantly — see [sighs] I won't get into what was Cas' master plan here. He expected to be taken by The Entity right here, right now, and then what was Jack going to do?

Bea: Stay in Heaven with his mom? 

Remmy: Oh. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. [laughs] You hurt me.

Bea: He was genuinely like, "I'll go now if you keep my kid alive. Give up your dominion of Jack. He already has a heaven here. He has a place. Let him stay with his mom."

Remmy: Oh my God. Yeah. Heaven versus The Empty. Like Jack — Cas couldn't have — if The Empty had taken Cas at the moment, Cas couldn't have brought Jack back to life. 

Bea: He would protect Jack from the fate of The Empty, which The Empty just said is worse than Hell. 

Remmy: Exactly. Exactly. Oh my God.

Bea: And Cas is like, "I call dibs on that seat."

Remmy: Oh my God.

Bea: "You can't let Jack sit in it, I'm gonna sit in it."

Remmy: Oh my God. And The Empty says, "Oh no, no, no, no."

Bea: "Good! But I'm tacking on some clauses."

Remmy: "Hmm. No, I won't take you now. I want you to go back to your life. I want you to forget about me. I want you to forget about this. It is only when you are at your happiest, when you let the sun shine —"

Bea: "When you give yourself permission to be happy." Because I feel like there's this obsession with when Cas is happy. No, it was when you give yourself permission to be happy. 

Remmy: Oh my God. You're so...

Bea: There's a difference there.

Remmy: It is, it is. That is an important distinction. It's not his happy moments. She says, "I want you to forget about me. I want you to forget about this. It's when you give yourself permission to be happy," because it will always be a shadow in his mind that The Empty deal is there. 

Bea: Yeah, this deal is here.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, "And it's only when you are truly at your most content that I will snatch it away from you."

Bea: Well, when you think you're free. When you are living your life as if you are free, that's when I want to come.

Remmy: Stop. Stop. You're making me so nervous for season 15. Oh my god.

Bea: When is he going to have a moment when he forgets about the deal? Anyway.

Remmy: [hushing] Oh my God.

Bea: Cas accepts. Cas says okay. Yeah. And then Dumah collapses. The Empty leaves, goes straight up through that ceiling vent.

Remmy: Oh my God.

Bea: And Dumah's disoriented. Jack is just like, [angrily] "Why?" Not in that tone of voice. That's more me bleeding in, but...

Remmy: [laughs] Jack says, "Why would you do that? How could you do that?" And Cas says, "I love you, and this is what—" 

Bea: No! No.

Remmy: I'm sorry! I'm sorry, what did he say? 

Bea: It's so critical, because he starts first and he says, "I made a promise."

Remmy: Oh my God.

Bea: And then when he looks at Kelly, then he amends to say, "Because I love you."

Remmy: Oh my God!

Bea: He starts with the shield of duty, and then he lets that shield drop and he lets it be the actual emotive place where he's at. 

Remmy: Oof. Oof. Oof!

Bea: I'm sorry that I came in here so aggressively, trying to stop [you], but it was a really critical thing as far as my notes were concerned. [laughs]

Remmy: Well, hell, I do it all the time. We're good. Oh my God. Yeah. No, you're totally right. He initially says, "Because I made a promise," and this is his closing moment on Kelly. He is saying, "I will protect your son."

Bea: Well, "I'm not even motivated by the vow anymore. I have my own intrinsic motivation and it is because I love you."

Remmy: "Because I love you." Exactly. Exactly. And it's okay. He tries so hard. He tells Jack it's okay.

Bea: [emotively] He's winning the dad Olympics and he doesn't even know.

Remmy: [laughs] Yeah.

Bea: I'm okay. Yeah.

Remmy: Are you okay?

Bea: [softly] I'm fine. Cas tells Jack not to tell Sam and Dean. I mean, he doesn't want them to worry. And so Jack — again, we're talking about promises here. Jack lays down that "I promise."

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. He says Sam and Dean don't need to know. "I don't want them to worry." It's just the way that he says it. Again, it's the same way that he is trying to reassure Jack in this moment, to say this. His face is so serene. He's just so happy.

Bea: He even says, "I'm at peace."

Remmy: I know!

Bea: "I would give anything in a heartbeat," and it goes back — parents will do anything to protect their kids. So Jack is going to be fine after this. Cas has zero hesitation protecting him from the fate of The Empty.

Remmy: And Jack promises not to reveal Cas' secret, in this moment.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: Oh my god.

Bea: [laughs] And Cas: "Let's go!"

Remmy: Oh my God, except Kelly and Jack, coming for my life!

Bea: [sadly] Yeah.

Remmy: Yeah, they say goodbye.

Bea: Jack, to Kelly, is just saying, "We didn't get enough time." I'm like, isn't that the story of you two right there?

Remmy: Augh. But Kelly says, "No." She again takes Jack's face in her hands and she says, "No, my baby. My son. You are perfect, and you are going to be so good, and you are going to live your life and I'll be here. I'm here when it's actually your time."

Bea: Yeah, "Go. Have a great life. I'll be waiting. I love you so much." Like, awww, Jack.

Remmy: Oh my God.

Bea: After that, Jack turns to Cas and: "You ready?" Cas touches Jack's face and Kelly's wiping tears away, and we are back to the bunker. Boom. Jack bolting upright on that slab where he's been prepared, and he's coughing.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. So we get the feel here that Cas has returned Jack's body to his soul, but his body is in just as bad of shape as it was when he died. This is what Cas meant when he said only for a few seconds, because he would basically just be returning a human soul to a dead body.

Bea: Ooh, yeah.

Remmy: Or a body that died for a reason.

Bea: Yes. A body incapable of holding the life.

Remmy: Right. Exactly. Exactly. But a couple seconds is all Lily needed. Sam hands Jack an incantation and says, "Read this," and Jack seals the deal on this soul magic.

Bea: Yeah, and Lily is looking strained as this is going on. She goes and sits aside. When Jack finishes this incantation his eyes glow, and he goes, "Was that my soul?" [laughs]

Remmy: [laughs] Well, I'm — you know what that actually made me think of? It was like — so we saw these glowing eyes, but it wasn't his grace, was it?

Bea: Nope, it wasn't typical element that we see.

Remmy: Right, right. It wasn't the yellow-eyed sunglow of Jack's Nephilim grace. It was this internal glow, and for Jack to come off of that power surge and say, "Was that my soul?" and Jack knows was his what his grace feels like. He knows what his magic is, what his powers are, and this was decidedly different. Even Jack recognized it as something decidedly different.

Bea: Yeah, so we closed the door on one peril and we're opening the door on another.

Remmy: Mhmm.

Bea: But in the moment, he feels good!

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: Dean gives him this huge hug, and Sam's right up close to him too. They're thanking Lily for her efforts, but she has passed already.

Remmy: Yeah, Lily went to rest in an armchair and she passed.

Bea: And then we are seeing this room full of filing cabinets and literally walking through it. She's approaching the desk where Anubis sits. She doesn't know why she's here but he gets out the abacus again, and this time when she holds her hand over it, she's got an A+ rating.

Remmy: Uh-huh. Well, you know, it made me think, for Lily to say, "Why am I here?" On the one hand, you can take it as, "I already know where I'm going. Why am I here?" But on the other hand, Anubis said himself, "I'm just the paperwork guy. I am the behind-the-curtains wizard." For Lily to be here, it's because Anubis invited her to be here and it was something that he wanted to see through. 

Bea: Yeah, and it gives a little insight into his character, because he stayed earlier even though it was against protocol.

Remmy: Yeah.

Bea: And here he is doing the measurement again. He even says, "Oh, curious." The result isn't what he was expecting. So he —

Remmy: I wouldn't say it wasn't what he was expecting. I would say that it was exactly what he was expecting. He knew that her fate would have changed, and he invited her to witness it herself.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: And he chose to be the one to usher her into Heaven.

Bea: Yeah, I do agree on that. I think where I was at with "he wasn't expecting it" was that normally it's not one deed that can save a life from going to Heaven or Hell. So to be in this place — he doesn't want it to just pass. He wants to be a bit privy to it as well.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. I get that. I like him a lot. I would love to see him later.

Bea: Yes. Yes, and now we have Cas leaving Kelly's heaven, and Naomi is there. She thanks him, and he's wary. He's looking for enemies.

Remmy: [laughs]

Bea: But he saved them and there's a good side effect for it. Now Heaven's okay.

Remmy: Yeah, Naomi says, "You saved us and I might even be tempted to offer you a reward." Cas is so wary. He's like, "I don't..."

Bea: Yeah. He looks like he's cornered even though he's in a hallway.

Remmy: It is Naomi.

Bea: Yeah, and so she rewards him with an impression of where Michael is. Then we get into our final scene.

Remmy: Jack and his burger! My three dads.

Bea: Yep! We have the Heaven scene, only this time it is in the bunker. Jack is digging into burgers, and they all have beers around, and he asks, "Is something wrong?" but they're just glad to have him back. Dean's pleased that they now know where Michael's location is, "However that happened," and they settle on this beat of optimism, where they're going to find Kaia and they're going to make Michael pay, and they clang their beers in celebration. 

Remmy: Yeah, such optimism in this scene. Such hopefulness in this scene. 

Bea: Yeah. It's not often that they have a plan for resurrection that like, okay. We had a lot of hiccups along the way, but it still worked. This shot in the dark that we didn't even think of at the bottom of the bottle last night; here we are, following through, we got our kid back.

Remmy: Yeah. Yeah.

Bea: All right. So what are your closing thoughts?

Remmy: [pensive] Final thoughts.

Bea: Final thoughts.

Remmy: Final thoughts! What's my final takeaway? Um.

Bea: Do you want me to go?

Remmy: Yeah, I do, actually. [laughs]

Bea: [laughs] I was like, I can feel you floundering. [laughs] For me, it was the repercussions, the what's next that's coming. We had the opportunity for the Winchesters to embrace death, but they just sat there saying nope, doesn't feel right, bad fit. [They] go to these lengths to bring Jack back. And so now we have the, you know, what are going to be the consequences of Jack having his life intertwined with his soul? And then, what are the consequences going to be for Castiel making that deal to save Jack? To me, this episode left you with those Damocles swords above you, and although we have this great beat at the end where they're happy and they have this forward goal of Michael figured out, there is still these looming threat where you're like — you're like Castiel and what The Empty expects of him, y'know? There's this shadow sitting there, and even if you are experiencing joy, it's the "at what cost" question that keeps coming up.

Remmy: Yeah, this death, okay. This Jack death. I talked about how it was different than other Supernatural deaths that we've seen before, even permanent deaths. There was something about this death that really did seem settled. It seemed okay. I don't know. 

Bea: Well, is it just — I mean, not to be bland about it, but was it a mundane enough death that you could see it happening in everyday life? When it's in the Winchesters lives, it's like when we saw them in the hospital last week. They seem so out of place while they're there. They don't know the song and dance that they have to [do], and then when they get enough of it, they bail. [laughs] 

Remmy: It's like — it's one part that, where this is just, you know, s*** happens, but it's one part also just the way that they were reacting to this death. They were laughing at the table when they were eating nougat and drinking whiskey and reminiscing, and they were — when asked the question, "What's the next steps?" they responded with a wake and a funeral.

Bea: Yeah.

Remmy: They were ready to move on, and we see Jack — like I said, Empty aside — we see Jack in Heaven, happy and even able to be with his mother and happy. I don't know. It just felt too... There's a certain ominous [feeling]. Like you said, these consequences. What will be the consequences? I get the feeling that was not the right deal to make. We yanked him away from something that should have happened.

Bea: Yeah, the characters might not have been sitting comfortable with what happened, but as for actual outcomes — Jack in Heaven, being fine, Empty aside — and them just having to live the life now of having lost this person that they saw as a dependent, saw as family, as a kid to them.

Remmy: They have again made a disproportionate sacrifice.

Bea: Yeah, and just because they think okay, it came at the 11th hour and all it's going to cost is just a little sip of Jack's battery once a day. [cringes]

Remmy: Yeah [cringes] Yeah, we're waiting for that sword to fall.

Bea: Yes.

Remmy: Uh-huh. We, the viewer, does not believe for a second that this is not going to come back and bite us in the a**, as Dean said.

Bea: Yeah. And unlike Cas, we can experience joy but there is that sliver of shadow that is looming over it, wondering what's next.

Remmy: [strained] Cas' Empty deal. Oh my God. Okay. What is my takeaway? Holy s***. My final takeaway is just the feelings that surrounded, that precedented — no, proceeded, not precedented. The feelings that preceded this deal, leading into it. We were okay, we were okay until we were not okay. Or more like we were okay until we had this bone dangled in front of us. It's just — I'm waiting for the moment when we can be okay with it, you know? With death or with loss, or this is how it is. It's just so — I don't know. On the one hand, it's weird to me because the Winchesters know what comes following death.

Bea: But they've spent their whole lives fighting to protect people from fates like this. It's a difficult habit to try and break.

Remmy: And I think that my final takeaway is exactly that. It's that we were, at first, lead down this hallway of emotional growth that said, "Hey, we can be okay," and then at the 11th hour [we were] yanked into the f****** bathroom and given a f****** swirly in the toilets, because we were yanked on that chain. And now we have in the back of our mind that that sword is going to fall.

Bea: Yep.

Remmy: Yep. And that was [laughs] season 14, episode 8: "Byzantium". Yeah.

Bea: Yeah, woof.

Remmy: And next week, we will be covering season 14, episode 9: "The Spear". It's the mid-season finale already.

Bea: Oh my God. Time flies.

Remmy: [laughs] But we're having fun. It flies because we're having fun and crying.

Bea: Absolutely. Absolutely. Through the tears, we can't see the clock. So. [laughs]

Remmy: Exactly. As always, join us on Twitter, Tumblr, Podbean.

Bea: Wherever you get your podcasts. Like, Subscribe.

Remmy: Yeah. Like, Subscribe, Comment. We see everyone; we love everyone. 

Bea: So yeah. Thank you guys for joining, and we'll see you next week.

Remmy: And we'll see you next week. Bye! Bye, guys.

Bea: Bye!

[post-outro stinger]

Remmy: I should have looked up the meaning of that word before we went in, because [laughs] it's just a word. Anyways! It was an episode written by — 

Bea: [into phone] Siri, what's the meaning of Byzantium?

[Siri, in a male Australian accent]: Byzantium means: An ancient Greek city — 

Remmy: [laughs] 

[Siri, in a male Australian accent]: — founded in the 7th Century BC, at the southern end of the Bosporus, site of the modern city of Istanbul. It was rebuilt by Constantine the Great in AD 324 - 30 as Constantinople. 

Remmy: Istanbul, not Constantinople?

Bea: Correct. It's Byzantium, not Constantinople. [laughs] 

Remmy: [laughs]


End file.
